Here's a little technological gem: an excerpt from Micro Live, January 1985, wherein they first take a look at the current state of the art in novelty and feature phones, including one capable of storing hundreds of names and numbers, for easy dialling, before introducing a fascinating new radiotelephony technology based on the concept of small area "cells". They conclude with a live demonstration of an international phone call made from the rooftop of Broadcasting House, using a portable cellular phone. ^_^

For those following along with Steven Universe, here's a selection of characters drawn in a realistic style - quite striking! (By /u/Gilgrion) However, having just checked the episode list's broadcast dates, I can see I'm in for quite some frustration - whereas most series have completely or largely consistent air dates, appearing every week or so, Cartoon Network's SU schedule ranges from four episodes on the same day (known as "bombs" in the fandom), up to two months apart. ^_^;;

Or, for something rather different, this ad from a Kuwaiti telco, being broadcast over Ramadan, condemning the attacks perpetrated in the name of Islam. Notice the credits appearing as it progresses - they give their names, and in which bombing they'd been injured.

This is curious. ^_^ Apparently, some people were taught to spell dilemma as "dilemna", with the "n" being silent. Yet, no source can be found that's ever listed the errant spelling. I'd never even been aware of such an "alternative spelling" until now.

Hm! Has anyone else experienced trouble downloading from YouTube recently? On Tuesday, I tried fetching the new episodes of Steven Universe, only to find 4K Video Downloader just shrugging its shoulders. It managed to parse the URL fine, offering the usual selection of filesizes and resolutions, but couldn't actually download anything. I'm guessing it's just YouTube playing with the internals, so apps like this are left high and dry until they're updated. (Not to worry: I found much better quality copies on DailyMotion =:)

Doctor Who: oh, my. ^_^; I'm absolutely fine with writers taking liberties with technology for the sake of advancing a storyline, but.. WTF? So, yes, obligatory "covers half the screen" password dialogue, great. That's artistic license, even if horribly overused. But an air cycling system that magically can't be overridden? In a time of lockdown? And then, to cap it all off, some oddball "are you sure you want to escape?" plot device based on a four digit combination lock.. ? O.o Argh. The problem is, if you delete all that crap, it's actually a good episode - so why on Earth did those (experienced! With demonstrable familiarity with 20th Century techology!) writers both go on such a tour of Lazytown, when they could easily have worked up a script that didn't rely so heavily on Because I Said So technological plot devices? (And I'll forget about the bacterial evolution, let alone mechanisms)

I'm glad to see 500px appears to have dropped their "fingerprint" logo, which supplanted their well-established "infinity sign" logo a couple years back.

California's new - niche, for now - crop: coffee! "The avocado growers face major disruptions in their business, including increased competition from Mexican imports, less access to water and rising real estate prices, all of which are forcing them to rethink that crop. But thanks to Mr. Ruskey, they have realized that their sprawling avocado trees provide perfect shade for high-quality coffee bushes. One variety of Mr. Ruskey’s beans, Pacamara, emits an earthy scent like the smell of California dirt and new plants in spring. His Geisha beans have a light and fruity flavor with low acidity. Bourbon finishes with a chocolate taste."

The 300mm f/4 continues to be unstable, sadly. Thursday's rabbiteering was curtailed by yet another AF failure, which no amount of contact cleaning or manual focus adjustment could remedy. Yet, again, by Friday, it was again focusing normally.. quite odd. Could there be a thermal element to the fault? Or even electrical? But then, if the latter, why would it sometimes return to normal during a rabbiteering evening? Anyway, Friday's looking very good for weather, so I'll see what happens then. If it strikes again then, and won't come back within half an hour or so, maybe I'll head back and see if the roomie's D5500 causes it to respond differently. (Unfortunately, that uses a different battery, the EN-EL14a; the D7100 takes the quite differently shaped EN-EL15, which is shared across the upper end DX and various FX models)

And there we go - Friday, it was back to normal, and continued uneventfully through the evening. ^_^ I'll remain wary, given what a blow permanently losing AF on the lens would be, but for now.. !

The home brewing proceeds apace! Bottled the Belgian on Saturday for its secondary fermentation, and the "vodka" looks like it's ready to do something else with - having ordered the wrong kit, a neighbor may well be able to assist with a secondary yeast pitching to bring it to 20% after all. Still, it's wonderfully smooth stuff - plenty of cocktail potential even as is! The Belgian's modeled after Duvel, so, moderately malty, with a brisk hop finish - tasting rather nice at the moment, and per calculation, looks to be in the 9% range at the moment. The cider I'm leaving a little longer, as it still seems okay with finishing off the last sugar - as of Saturday, it's at about 1.012, so still a little sweet, but with a very pleasantly rich apple nature, and the tannin I've added does seem to've brought out a bit more of an edge. It's not a farmhouse cider by any means, but so far, I'm quite happy with it. ^_^ I imagine that'll be ready to bottle around Tuesday or so - I'll just see how far the yeast wants to go, and how it tastes at that point.

Next up: another kit, this time from the Australian brewers Coopers, with their "IPA Brew A". I'm hoping that'll be pretty good as is, but I'm intending to dry hop it with some of the Northern Brewer I picked up the other week - that could put me somewhere within reminiscence distance of the Magnolia's quite wonderful Proving Ground IPA, which whilst being quite heavy on the hops, is done in such a way as to emphasise the aromas, not bitterness, especially the cask conditioned version. As the instructions suggested adding 1.5kg of light malt powder, rather than just sugar, I compromised on picking up one 500g bag of medium malt - I imagine the kit would be lovely by itself, but the additional malt could be quite a fun addition. ^_^ And there we go! Made that up on Monday, with an OG of 1.067 - if it comes to around 1.011 (as the cider appears to have wound up at), that'd make it around 7.5%.

And, well.. yep, we tried the cider and Belgian properly for the first time on Tuesday. ^_^ The cider's turned out surprisingly more authentic than I'd been expecting - it's actually a brew I'd want to seek out, despite being borne of a concentrate. It's somewhat like a Dabinett and Vilberie combined, with a nice mild edge. Meanwhile, I'm occasionally venting the Belgian bottles to ensure they don't pressurise too greatly - and it's good! Somewhat like Duvel x Rochefort. Better beer and cider than I can buy, for a fraction of the price? It's not such a bad deal. ^_^ And there we go! Bottled the cider at 1.008, so, still a bit sweeter than I'd ideally like, but still a very pleasant creation indeed, superior to most supermarket ciders, though I suppose that's not saying very much. =:) At that FG, it's somewhere around 8.2%.

For that matter, does anyone else here brew (or even distill) at home?

And another from last week, with one youngster gingerly making some unknowable enquiry of perhaps a parent.. ^_^

And maybe a couple from Thursday.. thankfully, the lens hasn't been giving trouble for the last few rabbiteering evenings. Whether that's purely coincidental, or related to me trying not to maintain focus for quite such prolonged periods (if I half-press the shutter, the body continues to maintain focus, which also means the AF motor's kept active, even if it's not doing much beyond tiny adjustments at that point), I can't tell, but I'm hugely relieved, though I'll still be happier when I can get the lens taken care of properly.

I'm horribly behind with everyone's journals, but I'll do what I can to catch up. If there's anything I ought to make a point of reading, do point the entry out, please.

Wil Wheaton of Star Trek fame has done a lot of home brewing, and I think his wife has joined him in brewing mead, IIRC. He's posted some of his formulations and trials and tribulations on his blog, though it's been a while since he's written about it so you'd have to do some tag searching to find it.

Oo, I ought to have a peek at that - the roomie's been quite interested in making some mead. It's not cheap, of course, with all the honey, and takes a good bit of time to mature well, but seems so well worth it. Wonder if I could exchange a bit of my Belgian and/or cider for a bit of his mead? ^_^

Oh, indeed - there are many around. He's very tempted to try, but he's enjoying all his fruit wine creations a bit too much. =:) Quite understandable - it's really quite easy, and so cheap! And using different juices and blends, you can wind up with some remarkably superior creations costing a fraction of even the cheapest commercial wines, even TJ's Two Buck Chuck. =:) (I never could quite tell the difference between their CabSauv and Merlot, but they made for perfectly enjoyable drinking, let alone braising lamb shanks away for hours =:)